“She used a weapon,” Ashley Judd said. “A firearm. So that’s the piece of information we are very uncomfortable sharing.”
She and her sister Wynonna Judd announced on April 30 that they had lost their mother “to the disease of mental illness.” She was 76.
Ashley Judd said she and her family wanted to shed light on mental illness, explaining that it is “important to make the distinction between the loved one and the disease.”
“I have both grief and trauma from discovering her,” said Judd, who began the interview by thanking everyone for the support she and her family have received in the wake of their grief.
The matriarch died the day before she and her daughter Wynonna, who made up the country music duo The Judds, were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Ashley Judd said her mother “couldn’t hang on” to be recognized by her peers.
“That is the level of catastrophe of what was going on inside of her,” Judd said. “Because the barrier between the regard in which they held her couldn’t penetrate into her heart and the lie the disease told her was so convincing.”
The Judd sisters attended the ceremony and honored their mother.
